


It's All Gravy

by domestichesters (orphan_account)



Series: The Ghost of You (Ben's POV) [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:09:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25759378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/domestichesters
Summary: My take on what the years leading up to the first season might have looked like for Ben and Klaus. Ben's POV.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves
Series: The Ghost of You (Ben's POV) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1868710
Comments: 7
Kudos: 42





	It's All Gravy

He’s fourteen when he dies. Scrawny. A tangle of long limbs and acne and a voice two octaves too high. Just a boy.

He stands in the middle of the bank, his siblings whirring past him, knives flying and voices shouting to be heard above the chaos. Then it happens. One of the robbers pulls a gun, and before Ben can react, before he can unleash the fighter he’s been trained all his life to be, the bullet lodges itself in his heart and he collapses.

It’s nothing that hasn’t happened before. He’s been shot too many times to count. Stabbed all over. Covered in scars- most of which he can’t even remember obtaining. But this time is different- feels different. He can’t breathe. Every passing second his body feels colder, warmer, both at the same time. He feels his body deflating even as he sits in it, his own blood swallowing his bare legs and arms in a sickening sort of heat. He knows, in a blinding instant, that this is the oldest he’ll ever be. 

He thinks he hears his name. He thinks he feels a hand on his shoulder, thinks maybe that ringing in his ears is a scream or a howl or the sound of knees colliding with the floor.

One thing he doesn’t expect: there isn’t any pain. Death, surprisingly, feels a bit like falling asleep. He lets his eyes close. He lets himself forget, for a moment, the hole in his chest and the noises of battle and the part of him that knows his siblings will never forgive themselves for this, the part of him that desperately wants to tell them it’s okay but can’t find the voice to do so.

The blood becomes a blanket. The cold tile at his back, his bed. The screaming, the hands pawing at him, the voices in his ear- they become his mother, tucking him in before bed. She brushes his hair back with a delicate hand and kisses his forehead. She tells him he fought bravely. Across the hall, his siblings laugh about something Ben will never understand. She flips the light.

—

Before Ben died, he thought about death. He thought about death so much it consumed him, ate away at him, kept him up at night. 

It started when he was seven. Dad was training him, testing his control over the monsters he carried, when one of their tentacles poked a hole through the heart of a practice dummy. 

It wasn’t even a living thing- no blood, no veins. Just a practice dummy. A punching bag on wheels. But still, it frightened him. He lost control. The tentacles went haywire, started grasping at anything in reach, and Ben fell to the floor. He screamed and writhed and screamed until moments that felt like hours had passed and he opened his eyes to find his father glowering above him, the monsters tucked away. 

That night, Ben dreamed that the dummy had a face. He dreamed that the dummy had Klaus’ face. Then Allison’s face. Then his own. He saw the tentacles rip its heart out, watched as blood poured from its chest to the floor, watched the life fade from Klaus’ eyes, then Vanya’s, then Allison’s, then Luther’s and Diego’s and Five’s and his own. 

He was seven years old, and for the first time in his life, death didn’t seem like some far-off inevitability. Death seemed painfully, blindingly within-reach.

He began to see death everywhere. He saw it in the kitchen knives Mom left out on the counter. He saw it in the too-steep stairs leading up to the third floor. He saw it in every passing thunderstorm and every open outlet and every crank of the faucet in the bathroom as one of his siblings drew a bath. 

More than anything else, he saw death when he looked around at his family. Death was there in Luther’s borderline vicious grin as he play-fought with Diego in the living room. Death was waiting in the collection of sharp objects Diego stole and kept in the drawer of his nightstand, the way he’d sneak into training rooms without dad’s permission and practice his aim, always a perfect bullseye. Death was there in Allison’s eyes, how they twinkled when she got what she wanted, how sometimes after spending several hours with her Ben wouldn’t remember any of it. Death was present in the way Five was always disappearing and reappearing, the way he didn’t care who he scared or pissed off, the way he didn’t care if things went sideways. 

And, of course, death followed Klaus around like a shadow. Unlike the others, Ben worried less about Klaus killing or even being killed. Ben worried more about the way Klaus’ eyes would dart around the room mid-conversation. How sometimes Klaus would flinch in the middle of dinner and ask to be excused. The way his face was always a ghastly shade of white when he’d returned from a day of special training, and even though he told Ben almost everything, he never told Ben what he’d seen. 

On one of the many sleepless nights Ben spent in Klaus’ room, reading silently on the floor while Klaus doodled over the walls in marker, Ben set his book aside and asked if Klaus ever saw the spirits of people they’d slaughtered. Klaus flinched but didn’t meet Ben’s eyes. “No,” he said. 

“If you had seen them,” Ben asked, “would you tell me?”

For a long moment, they sat in silence. The only sounds: the whirring of the air conditioning unit, their quiet breathing, in and out. Klaus turned to Ben and shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t.” 

As they grew older, Ben’s fears worsened. Mission after mission, Ben watched the monsters inside of him tear people apart. He watched his siblings throw and shoot and stab and rumor their way to victory, his siblings who were just kids who returned home covered in so much blood and so often the bottoms of both bathtubs were permanently stained a violent shade of red. 

Ben spent hours wondering what the last few moments of one’s life must feel like. He wondered if it was like in his books—if your whole life flashes before your eyes. He wondered what his life would look like in flashes. Shouting. Gaping wounds. His father’s voice.  _ Be better, stronger, braver. _ His father’s voice those days he didn’t want to let his monsters out, was too afraid of all they could do.  _ Selfish to keep them inside. Selfish when you could be using them to people. Selfish. Selfish. Selfish.  _

When Five disappeared, it felt like the first shoe had dropped. Even though he hadn’t died—at least, they couldn’t be sure—for the first time, their lives at the academy felt flimsy. Felt small, expendable. They were given the weekend to mourn their brother, to miss him, before everything went back to normal. Ben watched from the window as Klaus attempted to summon Five, again and again and again, always wearing an expression both relieved and disappointed after. And then––more training. More missions. Mission after mission after mission and Ben saw the fear he’d felt all his life latching onto his siblings. Though none of them said it, every meal they’d look around the table, wondering which one them be next. Wondering when- not if- the other shoe would drop. 

Ben spent so long wondering, worrying, speculating. But never once did he consider the possibility that one’s final moments might be peaceful. That it would feel like the end of a long, long day, eyes drooping shut as the weight of everything you saw and loved and did carries you into a dream, a dream filled with good and bad and yelling and crying and fighting and one memory that stands out above the others: 

_ Eight years ago. The first snow of their short lives. Running out into the street in boy-shorts, brothers and sisters at his heels. Snowballs flying. Allison shouts at him to look out as Klaus runs towards him, away from a snowball Luther hurled moments ago. Klaus barrels into him and Ben lands on his back in the snow in the middle of the street. His uniform is soaked, his skin red and blotchy. But he doesn’t feel cold. Above him, his siblings gather, looking down at him and laughing, their smiles huge, their hair covered in snow like confetti. _

_ Should’ve gotten out of the way, Klaus teases.  _

_ You okay? Vanya asks. _

_ Ben feels himself smile. I’m okay, I’m okay.  _

_ And he means it.  _

—

He’s fourteen when he wakes up in the room where he died, only it’s different now. Brighter. His body is gone. His siblings are nowhere to be found. The robbers and their weapons have disappeared. 

Around him, hundreds of strangers look on. Some are smiling. Some look angry. Some, he thinks, resemble the people he’s killed. No, people the things inside him have killed, he tries to correct himself. But why lie to himself any longer?

He’s fourteen, and despite everything, he’s never felt more alone.

Where the door should be, there’s a blinding light. The strangers- the dead, wounded, desperate strangers- part down the middle, making a path for him. They want him to walk into it. To walk through it into whatever comes next. He shivers. The voices tell him to go into it, tell him this is his chance. An older woman with half her face missing grabs his arm, and he feels like he‘s going to be sick, like he needs to keel over and get everything inside of him out, but there’s nothing inside of him anymore. He’s just a shell. A fingerprint left behind in the dust. 

He stares at the light, watches it pulse and tempt and repel. One moment, he can’t imagine a greater peace than walking into it. The next, he feels sick again. He doesn’t know what’s on the other side, and nobody here seems eager to tell him. He doesn’t even know if there is an other side. And if there is, if the other side is an afterlife, he doubts he deserves the good kind. Doubts that heaven would even want him after he’s killed so many people he lost count years ago. 

All he knows is he’s only a kid. When he looks down at his hands, he sees them at fourteen, at ten, at seven, at four. Just a kid. Maybe some part of him always knew, worried, it would happen like this. That he wasn’t the kind of kid who could ever grow up- not realistically, at least. But he’d hoped. He wanted to see the world. He wanted to watch a movie in theaters. He wanted to make friends he could play frisbee with and he wanted to fall in love with someone who made his heart stop just like in his favorite books. More than anything, more than all of that, he‘d hoped one day he’d figure out who he was—not as a brother or a son or a weapon, but as a man. As an individual. 

All of that, all that wanting, gone in an instant. His adulthood ripped from his fingertips. A voice, far off, whispers, “As if you ever even had a choice.” 

He takes a step forward. And another. The voices grow louder.

But then something stops him in his tracks. Something tugs at him. He hears a sound- his name, maybe, or the whisper of it. He feels himself being pulled, beckoned, and inexplicably, despite the strangeness of it all, he trusts the thing doing the pulling. Feels a connection to it. He accepts the call and in the blink of an eye, he’s gone. 

—

It was Klaus who called him. Klaus who’s fourteen and even scrawnier than Ben, all right angles and bones that jut against skin. Clumsy. Ben wants to cry, wants to run to him and hug him and tell him about this crazy dream he had where he died and everything was wrong just so wrong, but then Ben sees Klaus’ hands, how they pulse blue with power, just like they had following Five’s disappearance. And it takes Ben a moment to figure out where they are—at the academy, in the yard. Behind him, a coffin in the ground. A funeral happened here. _ His _ funeral happened here. 

He doesn’t know how long it’s been since he died—time seems to pass differently here––but however long it’s been, it’s snowed since then. The sky is grimmer than it was the day he died. Part of him wonders if this is real at all, or if it’s all some blood loss-induced illusion. He can’t make sense of a world where he both exists and doesn’t––a world he doesn’t belong to anymore. The doorway light flashes in his mind’s eye once again. Maybe that light isn’t an exit, but an entrance. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, walking through it. Maybe it’s inevitable. But then Klaus turns around and sees him and he’s smiling and he’s happy in that annoyingly infectious way Klaus has down to a science, where his happiness seems to take up all the space there is in the world, and it’s all you can do to be happy in return. Ben smiles a small smile. He tries to tell him about the light, about how they said this is his chance, possibly his only chance, and maybe he’s trying to convince himself more so than Klaus. Maybe all he wants is for Klaus to tell him he doesn’t have to go through it- that he can stick around for a while. 

And Klaus does. Tells him it’s okay, he has time, he can walk into the light whenever he’s ready. And Ben lets himself believe his brother even though he knows Klaus better than anyone and recognizes the hesitation in his voice, knows in an instant he isn’t sure at all. But he believes him anyway because the fear in his voice reminds him of his own and he’s tired of feeling afraid.

So he follows his brother inside, and just like that, whatever cord connects Ben to the room with the light is severed. Ben feels the pull dissipate, and with it, all the fear. All the longing. He knows without having to be told that whatever afterlife awaited on the other side is no longer an option. 

—

“Tell them I’m here.”

Ben stands in the corner of the kitchen, watching as Klaus talks to Diego and Allison at the table. Only moments ago, Diego had demanded, voice cracking, that Klaus summon Ben.

Now, Klaus looks back at Ben and for the first time in as long as Ben can remember, Ben doesn’t recognize Klaus’ expression. There’s some anger there, maybe some sadness, but for the most part whatever he’s feeling is unrecognizable. For the first time, Ben realizes how completely and totally powerless he is now. 

“Klaus, just tell them. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Klaus turns back around to Diego and Allison, the former wearing a frustrated expression and the latter crying into the sleeve of her blazer. “Sorry, guys. No can do. I’ve tried to summon him, really, I have....”

“Of course,” Diego snarls. “Useless as ever.” 

Klaus flinches at that, but lets Diego storm off out of the room.  _ Useless.  _ Ben looks after Diego, thinks about how they were always playing pranks on their siblings, how they used to mess with Klaus’ alarm clock, put butter in Allison’s shoes. 

After a moment, Allison’s trembling hand finds Klaus’. “You aren’t useless,” she says. “He-  _ we _ just miss him. But he shouldn’t take that out on you. I’ll talk to him, okay?” She smiles feebly, squeezes Klaus’ hand, and leaves. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Ben asks again. 

“Just shut up,” Klaus sighs. He pulls out his flask and Ben tries to take it from him but his hands pass right through Klaus’, and Klaus has the nerve to laugh, as if this is all some joke, as if Ben losing everything and everyone is funny.

“Stop laughing,” Ben says. He feels his voice rising, feels his fists curl at his sides. Klaus keeps laughing. “Klaus! Why aren’t you telling them? Klaus, listen to me!”

Klaus rolls his eyes and takes another swig from his flask. Slowly, his smile falls into a grimace. He turns around again, hisses, “It’s not fair to them.”

“No, what’s not fair is you keeping this from them.”

“Fine. Whatever. It’s not fair to me. Are you happy? Is that what you wanted to hear? That I’m a selfish prick? You win, okay? I’m done.”

“Klaus...”

“What, Ben? What?”

“Look, if you’re worried that they- they’ll just use you to talk to me, or something-”

“That’s exactly what they’ll do.”

“Klaus-”

“Bah bah bah. No more talking. Go be annoying somewhere else.” 

“Klaus, they love you.”

“Yeah, but they love you more. Don’t argue with me, okay? I’m getting tired of it. Just poof away or something.”

In life, Ben always thought he understood Klaus––or at the very least, that he had a better understanding of Klaus than their siblings. But this Klaus, this Klaus who’s tired and avoidant and angry, doesn’t make any sense to him at all. Ben opens his mouth to say something, but decides pushing Klaus will get him nowhere. He sighs. Puts his hands in his pockets. “I’ll just give you some space then.”

—

Ben misses things he never expected to miss. He misses hunger, misses the way his stomach used to do flips at the scent of Mom’s breakfast casserole wafting up the stairs into his room. He misses feeling so tired he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He misses thirst, misses having to pee, misses always feeling a little too cold in this big drafty house. He misses looking at himself in the mirror. He misses his acne and the way his hair got greasy if he didn’t wash it enough and the faces his brothers would make if he’d forgotten to put deodorant on in the morning. He even misses pain- misses the subtle reminders that he was alive, that blood was coursing through his veins.

When he tells Klaus he misses these things, Klaus doesn’t get it. He just laughs. “You  _ miss _ taking shits?”

But how can you explain what it’s like to miss something so badly you long for even the most mundane parts of it? 

––

A quote Ben remembers reading:

_ You are not living. You are just surviving. _

The first time he read it, he was ten and the quote didn’t make much sense to him. He didn’t understand––how were living and surviving any different? But now, looking back on his life, he understands.

To survive is to stay afloat––to wonder how much longer you can hold on. To live is to find yourself on solid ground.

Ben spent his whole life treading water. He may have survived for fourteen years, but he never lived. 

What a terrible thing it is, to have spent your whole childhood fighting for your life. To die never having lived. 

—

For the first few months, the worst parts are the silent ones. The moments when Klaus is sleeping or training or just wants Ben to piss off and Ben has to go it alone for a while. Unlike Klaus, who drowns out the ghosts with drugs and alcohol, Ben can’t stop seeing them everywhere. Dead people litter the halls of the academy, fill the streets, screaming and covered in open wounds and missing limbs. At first, he tried to talk to all of them. Tried to help them through whatever was keeping them in limbo. But after a while, it began to weigh on him. Their stories horrifying and sorrowful, their screams so intense he hears them even when he’s alone. 

Sometimes when Klaus is preoccupied, Ben walks the halls of the Academy, watching over his siblings in hopes of distraction. Despite Ben’s constant begging, Klaus hadn’t told the others about Ben’s presence. Watching people mourn you is a strange experience, watching them miss you as you stand by their side. 

Ben remembers this episode of The Twilight Zone. In the episode, all this guy wants to do is read, but people and life keep getting in the way and then one day, the world ends. And somehow, miraculously, he survives. And he’s overjoyed because, hey, now he has all this time to read, right? But then his glasses break and he’s alone and there isn’t anyone who can fix them or anywhere he can go for help.

Ben feels like that guy sometimes. Like he spent so much time while he was alive wanting to be alone for once, wanting to read in peace in the quiet of his bedroom, aching to leave this place. But now that he has all the time in the world to be alone, he doesn’t want to be alone anymore. Can’t bear to be alone anymore. 

Multiple times, he walks in on Vanya sitting in front of the bookshelf in his old room and running her fingers along the spines, her eyes watery and heavy. He catches Allison holding a picture of him to her chest and rocking back and forth on the floor. On several occasions he finds Diego and Luther arguing over his death, blaming each other, pointing and shoving and shouting until their voices come out raspy. 

He tries to talk to them, even though he knows he can’t. He tells them everything. He tells them about the light. He tells them he’s sorry their father put all the blame on them, he tells them it isn’t their fault, he tells them it’s okay. He asks them how they’re doing. 

It’s not like he expects them to answer. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less when they don’t. 

—

Ben is fourteen years old and three years dead and he’s aging. Not in the way he always thought or hoped he would- no, he doesn’t feel more comfortable in his body, doesn’t need to size up his clothes, doesn’t have to shave or learn what it’s like in the moments leading up to asking someone on a date for the first time. But there’s no denying that his body- if you can call all that’s left of him a body- is growing. Klaus tells him his face is getting older too, that he looks wiser, smugger. 

Ben doesn’t think that’s supposed to happen, but it’s not like there’s precedent for situations like his. He tries to figure it out, tries to ask Klaus what he thinks could be the cause, but Klaus just hushes him, uninterested. 

Ben wonders what he looks like. He sits in front of the mirror for hours on end, as if waiting for a miracle. He wonders if he looks like he would have if he’d actually had the chance to grow up, or if the way he looks is all inside Klaus’ head. He thinks it may be the latter, may be something subconscious in Klaus’ head causing him to grow. Something subconscious in Klaus’ head that can’t imagine or bear a reality where Ben stays fourteen forever and the rest of them don’t. 

—

It’s only a matter of time before the family falls apart. Ben watches as the fights grow more intense, as Diego grows more and more obstinate and then leaves, as one by one The Umbrella Academy ceases to be a family and his siblings become strangers to each other and the place they called home. 

And he’s powerless. Powerless to do anything but follow Klaus into abandoned warehouses and empty alleyways and watch him waste his life away. He tries his best to talk Klaus down. Tries to convince Klaus there are other ways of coping. But Klaus isn’t interested in what Ben has to say. He tells Ben he couldn’t possibly understand what he’s going through.

“That’s not fair,” Ben snaps one day. “When I was alive, I was scared every day because of my powers. I was hurting all the time.”

“Well, at least you can keep your monsters at bay.”

“Maybe you could too, if you stayed sober for long enough.”

“But drugs do the trick just fine.” Klaus smiles and pops a pill, then leans back, looks up at the stars. They’re sitting by the pool at some hotel. They come to this pool a lot, even though Klaus never stays here. He just knows how to avoid the security cameras, how to scale the fence without being caught. Sometimes he’ll swim. But mostly, he says he likes the view, the sound of the water, the smell. 

It’s a partly cloudy night, but Ben counts six stars, peeking through holes in the cloud cover. “You know, Ben, you’re lucky you’re dead. It’s fucking freezing right now.” 

“I guess there are a few perks.”

“I mean, totally freezing. Like, my balls are frozen.”

“Never too late to die tragically at a young age.”

Klaus laughs. “Tempting. Very tempting.” A pause. The chattering of Klaus’ teeth fills the silence, and Ben frowns over at him. 

“Klaus, you’re shivering like crazy, Christ. Go inside.”

“No, no, no, Ben, wait. I wanted to show you something.” 

This catches Ben off guard. What could Klaus possibly want to show him? He glances up at the sky, where Klaus’ eyes are trained, and back at Klaus. “What is it?”

“Just wait. Seriously. Any minute now.”

They sit in silence. Ben hears Klaus pop another pill, but doesn’t pry his eyes from the sky to look. Doesn’t say a word. After what feels like a half hour has passed, Klaus sighs. When Ben looks over, Klaus’ head is in his hands, and when he looks up his eyes are red with tears. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “It was supposed to be tonight, but I guess it’s too cloudy or- or something, I tried––”

“Klaus, it’s okay, breathe. What was supposed to be tonight?”

“Well, I read in the papers, there was––there was supposed to be a comet tonight. Like one of those every six hundred year comets, you know? I thought––well, I remember you talking about comets a while ago and you sounded so excited and I thought, I don’t know, I thought maybe this would be a nice thing to do for you. But it didn’t work. I fucked up. I’m sorry. Fuck.” 

Ben sits in a stunned silence, watching his brother tremble under the stars in the dead of November. All for him. All to make him happy. “It’s okay,” Ben says, but he means to say more. Can’t find the words to say more. If he could hug Klaus, he would. Maybe that would be enough. He just can’t think of the right words. After a moment or two, he says, “I, um, I didn’t know you actually listened to me.”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard not to with you jabbering my ear off all the time,” Klaus says, but it doesn’t sound malicious. Sounds, instead, almost fond. 

“Hey, you said this was one of those every six hundred year comets, right?”

Klaus cocks his head. “Yes?”

“Well, then,” Ben says, “I guess we’ll just have to be back here in six hundred years.”

Klaus looks over at Ben and grins, and Ben forgets his brother is high or why his brother is high. Forgets that he’s dead. Forgets all the terrible, messy, traumatizing moments that have gotten them here, to this point. For just one moment, for just this moment, they are normal brothers, and the world is just this pool and the sky above it, and all is as it could have been. “Six hundred years, huh?” Klaus says. He looks up at the sky and blows a kiss. “I guess we’ll see you then, little fella.”

—

Ben is fourteen years old and six years dead when Klaus almost dies at his feet for the first time. He watches as Klaus twitches and writhes on the floor, having overdosed unintentionally. He watches and tries to grab him, tries to yell for help, tries everything—powerless. Useless. Broken. His brother falls still. 

Ben screams so long his throat should be sore but isn’t, screams until he’s tired of screaming. He sits beside Klaus’ still body. He wonders if he would know if Klaus were dead. Would Ben fade away? Would Klaus appear next to him, a ghost himself? Or would Ben be stuck here, tethered to a world where the only person who could help him was buried six feet under? 

_ Selfish, selfish, selfish. _

He puts his head in his hands and prays, unsure to whom he’s even praying. He stays that way, hunched over, waiting, until he hears rustling. Klaus sits up, looks at Ben, and sighs.

“Worried about me?”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Yeah, so did I.”

And just like that, it’s over. When Ben tries to bring it up, Klaus gets quiet or defensive, so he stops. Only in the quiet, dark moments when Klaus is asleep does he let himself remember. Only then does he let himself wonder how long until it happens again. How many times can someone almost die before they’ve used up all their miracles. 

—

The second time Klaus almost dies in front of Ben, they aren’t alone. Klaus’ temporary roommate finds him, drives his near-lifeless body to the hospital, where Klaus sits in a coma for three days. Ben tries to listen in on the doctor’s conversations. He watches as his siblings are called, one by one, none of them answering. He wonders: if he were alive, would he have answered?

On the third day, shortly after Klaus awakens, Diego arrives. It’s only been a little over a year since Ben last saw his brother, but Diego looks lifetimes older. His face is scarred, his lower arm bruised. He talks to the doctors and then walks up to Klaus, sits at his side. 

“You okay, man?” he says.

Klaus smiles feebly. “Never better.”

“You’re lucky you weren’t alone. If you weren’t- if you-“

“Never alone,” Klaus mumbles, winking up at Ben. Ben smiles, because it’s Klaus, because he’s awake and alive and his brother, but it doesn’t last long.  _ Never alone.  _ But what does it matter if, technically, he’s never alone? If Ben’s there? Ben can’t help, can’t save the day. Klaus is as good as alone in the world. 

Diego sighs and puts his hand on Klaus’ arm. “You,” he says, “need to get your act together, okay? You’re better than this.”

“Sound like Dad.”

Diego tenses. “I’m gonna let that one slide because you’re all hopped up.“

“Dad dad dad dad-“

“You know what, fuck you. Dad couldn’t even be  _ bothered _ to come here today. I ran all the way here because I got a voicemail that you almost  _ died _ two days ago and I was scared, man, but fine, you know what, whatever. Next time I just won’t come.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

“And you’re in a hospital bed, Klaus! A fucking hospital bed!” Diego’s voice rises to a shout, and everyone in the hospital grows silent. Diego lowers his voice, “Look, you might not care whether you live or die, but I do, okay? I care. Just...get your shit together.”

It happens five more times. Ben sits by his brother, watches as his siblings make sporadic appearances. Diego shows up for three of the near-death experiences. Vanya comes by for one but doesn’t say anything, and Klaus is too hopped up to notice. By the fifth, nobody comes at all. Ben, again, wonders if he would’ve come. He used to be softer, gentler, before all of this. Maybe if he hadn’t died, he would still be the kind of person to show up. Or maybe he would’ve been too busy trying to separate himself from all of this. 

Ben follows Klaus to rehab. Follows Klaus to prison. Every day, every hour, every passing second, the light pulses in the back of his mind. A reminder of all he has to lose.

He gets jaded. Mean. After Klaus’ first stay in rehab, Ben watches Klaus dial his dealer’s number on a payphone and before he can stop himself he’s yelling. Calling Klaus selfish, calling him weak, calling him all the things he knows Klaus hates to be called more than anything. 

Ben doesn’t think he ever yelled in his life—not like this. Klaus stares at him, puts the phone up.

“Ben?” he says, as if he doesn’t recognize Ben anymore. 

Ben stares back. For a moment, he can’t find the words. He stutters out an apology, but it doesn’t matter. It only gets worse. Where once he would’ve been patient with Klaus, he snaps. He criticizes. And Klaus snaps back. 

Sometimes, Ben wishes he had gone into the light. Wishes he’d gotten out while he still could. But other times, he looks over at his brother and sees the face of the boy who used to wake him up in the middle of the night after he’d had a nightmare. He sees the face of the boy who used to trade his cheesy bread for Ben’s mashed potatoes when Dad wasn’t looking. He sees the face of the boy who used to comfort Ben on the days when the monsters hurt the worst, who would always tell him he wasn’t the monster, he wasn’t the monster, he was just a boy with scary powers and they were both boys with scary powers and one day they’d grow up and their powers wouldn’t be as scary anymore. He sees that boy in his brother’s tired, aching eyes, and he knows that this is where he needs to be. That he’d spend a million more years by Klaus’ side, despite the arguments, despite the anger, despite the loneliness. He wouldn’t trade these years with Klaus for any form of heaven. 

—

One Christmas Eve, as Klaus comes close to freezing to death in an alleyway, Klaus asks Ben what he’s doing here.

“I go wherever you go,” Ben says, unsure what Klaus means.

“No, I don’t mean  _ here _ here, I mean here as in, like, the world. Like, why aren’t you, you know….” Klaus points at the sky.

“In heaven?” Ben asks. Klaus nods, wrapping his only blanket tightly around his jacketed shoulders. “If heaven exists, I don’t think they’d want me.” Ben looks down at his hands, sees them splattered in blood, all those hours spent at the sink scraping dried blood out from under his fingernails. 

“Are you kidding?” Klaus says, the hint of a laugh in his voice. “Being so good you annoy the piss out of everyone is, like, your whole thing.” 

“I’m not good. I’ve… killed people.”

“Oh, shut up with that already. I’ve told you before. You aren’t responsible for your tentacles.” 

“But I let them out.”

“Because Dad made you.”

“Because I let Dad make me.”

“Okay, okay, fine. Just...can you answer my question? Why are you here? Why haven’t you walked into the light or whatever yet? I mean, wouldn’t you rather be talking some angel’s ears off than sitting in an abandoned alleyway on Christmas Eve with your fucked up brother?”

“Well, I, uh, don’t think I  _ can  _ walk into the light anymore. I think it’s a one time only sort of deal.”

“Oh,” Klaus says. His breath fogs up in the December air. “So you would leave, if you could?”

Ben doesn’t know how to answer him. He doesn’t think he would. Doesn’t think he would want to if he had the option. But he worries Klaus won’t believe him, or will somehow take it the wrong way. Finally, he sighs and looks over at his shivering brother. “No. I wouldn’t.”

Klaus’ expression doesn’t change, remains pensive, exhausted. He curls up into himself. “It’s probably Christmas by now,” he says.

Ben smiles. “Merry Christmas.” 

“I miss being a kid.”

“What makes you say that?”   
  


“Dunno. At least back then we never spent Christmas alone,” Klaus says quietly, his eyes drooping shut. 

_ Alone.  _

Ben’s chest burns. He wants to say something, anything, to remind Klaus that even though he’s dead he’s still here, he’s still his brother. He gives Klaus a small smile. "Alone together?" he says. 

Klaus yawns, opens one eye and returns Ben's smile. "Alone together."

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is sort of sloppy! I wanted it to be longer but have been having a hard time focusing due to personal concerns but I still wanted to get this out there! This may be part of a series where I write Ben's POV on the events of season 1 and 2 as well!


End file.
